I’ve got a 2017 street glide with 16k miles on it, the other day I was heading to a buddy’s house and when I down shifted coming into town it seemed like it went into gear kind of weird and when I got into town I noticed a weird clunking that sounded like it was coming from the tranny/primary area but wasn’t for sure, it wasn’t a inconsistent sound and only does it when I’m driving, went through most of the bike to see if anything was loose and everything was good pulled the tranny oil to check for shavings and there was nothing, oil looked brand new, pulled the primary oil and found this (pictures below), there’s not even 500 miles on this oil change so oil definitely shouldn’t look this dirty and there shouldn’t be this much shavings already. I’m not understanding what is going on since I didn’t notice the clutch slipping and chain tension seems right, only does it while driving both on and off the throttle so I don’t think it’s the chain tensioner, anyone have any ideas what the noise could be? Sounds like someone is bouncing a marble off the case

 

The amount of metal dust on that magnet is perfectly normal. The primary fluid gets dirtier faster due to clutch plate wear, chain wear, sprocket wear, and compensator spoke wear. Having not heard the exact noise you are talking about, I can't be 100% positive, but I bet for almost certain that you are looking a the compensator banging around. You could take it to your dealer and have them listen and verify it for sure. There are several options to fix it if that's what's causing it, depending on your skill set and how much $$$ you wanna throw at it.

 

yeah I’m pretty sure it’s the compensator, I have never seen that much metal built up in my primary before, there’s literally 450 miles on this oil change so don’t get why it’s building up so fast

 

Interested in what you find out.